Watson urged to quit ODIs over persistent injury battles

Sydney, Nov. 18 (ANI): Former Test players have advised all rounder Shane Watson to consider quitting one-day cricket in order to safeguard his body and alleviate growing tensions within the Australian set-up over his chronic injury battles.

Watson has been named in a 13-man squad for the second Test in Adelaide starting on November 22, but there is an increasing sentiment that he needs to shake his repeated injury breakdowns and play consistently to reward Cricket Australia for their sustained investment in the Ipswich product, News.com.au reports.

According to the report, while former Test quick Len Pascoe believes it is time for Watson to walk away from 50-over cricket, legendary paceman Jeff Thomson hopes the vice-captain's injury woes haven't put him offside with national selectors.

"Maybe they are sick of his injuries, I don't know. He seems to get a lot of injuries and you can understand if the hierarchy are getting annoyed by it," Thomson said.

"Whether it is a major problem internally I don't know, but I really hope they keep faith in Watson because he is a better cricketer than most of the blokes we have running around. There's no question for me he is in our top six batsmen," he added.

However, Pascoe says the time has come for Cricket Australia to save Watson from himself and instruct him to retire from limited-overs cricket.

"We have to take care of Shane. I would think he has a career as long as he wants it, but we have a duty of care to use Shane in the best way possible in the modern game," he said.

"To me he is one of the top three batsmen in the world. On the bowling side of things, he should be used less and no longer be regarded as an all-rounder. I don't think the 50-over game is beneficial for Shane now," he added. (ANI)

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